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For many otological patients, pure tone audiometry should be a very familiar inspection program, and it is a popular hearing test method in modern times.

What is pure tone audiometry?

A simple description of pure tone audiometry is used to check whether the user’s hearing is normal. If there is a loss, it can reflect the degree of hearing loss and the nature of the user. Its inspection items include air conduction examination and bone conduction examination.

When the air conduction hearing threshold test, the inspector will wear the air conduction earphone for the user, paying attention to the fact that the two ears do not give the sound at the same time, but test one ear first, and then test the other ear after the measurement, the time is generally10Minutes or so. The air conduction test can reflect the degree of hearing loss of the user.

When the bone conduction hearing threshold test is performed, the examiner wears a bone conduction earphone for the user, and most of the bone will be sandwiched between the user’s test ear and the mastus, and the other end is clamped to the skull to fix the function. Also test one ear first, then test the other ear after the measurement. The bone conduction test is basically not affected by the condition of the outer ear and the middle ear, and has certain clinical differential diagnosis significance.

Through pure tone audiometry reports, doctors or audiologists can use the user as a basis for diagnosis and treatment based on the degree and nature of the user’s hearing loss.

How to perform a pure tone audiometry with a doctor or audiologist?

The audiologist will tell you which ear to measure first and explain the test requirements.

You will hear some beep, beep (or other) sounds in the headphones, please click the button (or raise your hand), regardless of the size of the sound, please press the button (or raise your hand) whenever you feel it. No sound, don’t press the button (raise your hand). Will test your better ears first, if you think that the hearing of the two ears is similar, the right ear will be measured first.

Learn how testers operate pure tone audiometry.

Frequency order:

The tester will sequentially give different sound signals in this frequency order.

The order of the air conduction audiometry test frequency is:1000,2000,4000,8000,retest1000,500,250Hz,In the retest1000HzWhen the result is different from the first time10dBAbove, the frequency should be re-measured in turn until the error is5dBTo.

The order of the bone conduction test frequency is:1000,2000,4000,500,250Hzfrequency.

Give the sound method:

At present, the lifting method is generally used in the clinic.10升5law”:

First give the user an audible sound. The suspected hearing can start from 30dB or 40dB. The hearing loss starts from 60dB~70dB. If the user still does not respond, increase the intensity by 20dB until the user reacts; then The intensity is reduced by 10dB spacing until the user is unresponsive, and then gradually increased by 5dB until the user hears, then 10dB is lowered, and the operation is repeated. During the ascent, the minimum intensity at which the user responds correctly to at least half of the acoustic signals is the true hearing threshold.